How Can I Create an Aerofly FS 4 Aircraft Model?

    What documentation are you referring to? If its this https://www.aerofly.com/dokuwi…hp/sdk:aircraft:modelling then as far as I know everything on the aerofly wiki is for Aerofly FS2 and it has not been updated for FS 4. Jet-Pack (IPACS) would have to answer the plugin question, maybe IPACS has up-to-date 3ds Max, Maya, AC3D plugins in house that they would provide on request (most likely not unless they use that CAD program for in-house product).

    Quote from jayeye2011

    What documentation are you referring to? If its this https://www.aerofly.com/dokuwi…hp/sdk:aircraft:modelling then as far as I know everything on the aerofly wiki is for Aerofly FS2 and it has not been updated for FS 4. Jet-Pack (IPACS) would have to answer the plugin question, maybe IPACS has up-to-date 3ds Max, Maya, AC3D plugins in house that they would provide on request (most likely not unless they use that CAD program for in-house product).

    Yes that is the docs I am referring to. Best would of course be to use Blender, I use that one with msfs as well. But the animation system is a little unclear, should animations be done in the 3d app or not?

    Here is an informative (but necro'd) forum thread from way back when people were hoping for commercial devs jumping into Aerofly FS2 aircraft addon market, in this case FlyingIron Simulations (a X-Plane 11 payware dev) trying to find out more about Aerofly FS2 aircraft development.


    Thread
    Aircraft Development
    Hi all!

    I've recently purchased Aerofly and have fallen in love with it. The VR is top-notch.

    I'm an aircraft developer for another Flight Sim and I am doing some RnD to assess the viability of porting my aircraft over to AFS. If it's something that is achievable (within a reasonable amount of time), I will seriously consider porting all my future aircraft over as well.

    I'm wondering if anyone has any tips with bringing an aircraft into AFS? It'd be great to get both the developers perspectives,…
    Donny


    From my reading of his travails, I am pretty sure all animations are defined in the tmd file, not the cad program.

    The only place I saw someone mention using 3ds Max for animations was in a thread about having animated people in an airport scenery for Aerofly FS 2.


    Further confirmation read this thread


    Post
    RE: Using AC3D to make Aircraft for AF2
    Jeff, may I correct you a bit?

    The animations aren't done in Max (or any other modelling program). They are all done within the TMD file. Yes, it's tricky and much more complex, compared to FSX/P3D. At the other hand, you have much more possibilities and basically all the freedom you want.

    Kai
    kai503

    I would double check on what 3D CAD software you need in order to work on your group's Carbon Cub model. From what I can tell reading the threads, 3ds Max is what IPACS is or was using internally, but they can afford to pay the tens of thousands required for a multi-seat group license. Also, kai503 who seems to be the original source of your model said he is using 3DS Max as a commercial developer so it's not Maya. I believe both 3DS Max and Maya are all old time 3D CAD animation products from the 1990's that eventually got bought by Autodesk. As long as someone in your group is willing to let you use one of their licensed seats to work on the Carbon Cub project that's one thing, but if you have to pay $5K out of your own pocket then man, I would just create a new aircraft model from scratch using Blender.


    Edit: Looking at the dr400.blender file from the AFFS4 Aircraft SDK, I don't see any blender animations defined, it is all done in the dr400.tmd file.

    Quote from jayeye2011

    I would double check on what 3D CAD software you need in order to work on your group's Carbon Cub model. From what I can tell reading the threads, 3ds Max is what IPACS is or was using internally, but they can afford to pay the tens of thousands required for a multi-seat group license. Also, kai503 who seems to be the original source of your model said he is using 3DS Max as a commercial developer so it's not Maya. I believe both 3DS Max and Maya are all old time 3D CAD animation products from the 1990's that eventually got bought by Autodesk. As long as someone in your group is willing to let you use one of their licensed seats to work on the Carbon Cub project that's one thing, but if you have to pay $5K out of your own pocket then man, I would just create a new aircraft model from scratch using Blender.


    Edit: Looking at the dr400.blender file from the AFFS4 Aircraft SDK, I don't see any blender animations defined, it is all done in the dr400.tmd file.

    Well as it now seems clear that the animations are indeed defined in the tmd file, it will be no problem to do all the work in Blender, even though some stuff has been done in Maya (will just be imported into Blender together with the rest of the model which is already in Blender)😀

    For anyone who is thinking about making an aircraft model for Aerofly FS 4 for the first time and finds the SDK DR400 to be too big a first step, I adapted the Aerofly FS 2 SDK 3DS Max blue box template for Aerofly FS 4, this time with a AC3D version 9 and Blender 3.3 LTS version instead of 3DS Max (if you have 3DS Max than you are a professional and already know what you are doing). This should let you experiment trying to get a basic shape into the simulation.


    revised (includes config.tmc needed by converter I guess)

    template_fs4_v2.zip


    For AC3D v9 I used the x64 plugin from here:

    plugin_ac3d_9_x64_20220718.zip

    Post
    RE: Aerofly FS 4 SDK - Now Available
    Matt, again, the old FS 2 AC3D plugins just work fine and we have supported 64 Bit AC3D for a long time. Again, we will publish the plugins again soon. Attached is a version for AC3D Version 9 for you to try, in case you want to use the latest AC3D version.
    admin

    At some point the question about how do you determine/calculate the axis of rotation (as a unit vector) and pivot point position, that seems to be needed in the tmd file graphics animation object definitions will come up. Well I don't know the answer. It may well be that 3DS Max can give you this information directly but who can pay for a $5K/seat license except maybe IPACS and Just Flight, certainly not an amatuer hobbyiest. As far as I know, neither Blender or AC3D can give you this information directly either. An additional complication for AC3D users is that the coordinate system (X,Y,Z axis directions for up, front, left) are different from the Aerofly FS aircraft X,Y,Z coordinate system alignment which means a coordinate transformation calculation must be performed on point and vector data that is transferred between AC3D model and the Aerofly FS tmd file.

    Quote from jayeye2011

    At some point the question about how do you determine/calculate the axis of rotation (as a unit vector) and pivot point position, that seems to be needed in the tmd file graphics animation object definitions will come up. Well I don't know the answer. It may well be that 3DS Max can give you this information directly but who can pay for a $5K/seat license except maybe IPACS and Just Flight, certainly not an amatuer hobbyiest. As far as I know, neither Blender or AC3D can give you this information directly either. An additional complication for AC3D users is that the coordinate system (X,Y,Z axis directions for up, front, left) are different from the Aerofly FS aircraft X,Y,Z coordinate system alignment which means a coordinate transformation calculation must be performed on point and vector data that is transferred between AC3D model and the Aerofly FS tmd file.

    Yes the axis and pivots will be needed for the animations. Jet-Pack (IPACS) do have some rotation matrix calculation tool which possible could be used to aid this process.

    Here is an interesting video and tool for creating accurate airfoils in blender. Not sure how well it would work for simulator model development as I have not tried it myself.


    EDIT: I don't think this is useable after all. While I can create an airfoil object in Blender 3.3 LTS, when use it as a replacement for the Box object in template.tgi and run the converter, the airfoil does not show up and the preview_template.tif is just a black picture.


    EDIT2: Okay, it actually works. I just goofed up being a total newbie to 3D stuff. What I did not understand was the idea that a complex shape needs to be manually unwrapped for the UV texture mapping. I found a video on Youtube about Blender UV unwrapping to be very informative. Note that I did figure out that the outside pointing normals for the airfoil object that I created from the AirfoilToolsBeta plugin's flat face object had to be generated.


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    AirfoilToolsBeta plugin (description says Blender 2.93 so not sure if it would work with new versions).


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    github


    GitHub - Fritkot99/AirfoilToolsBeta: Blender addon to import and generate airfoils
    Blender addon to import and generate airfoils. Contribute to Fritkot99/AirfoilToolsBeta development by creating an account on GitHub.
    github.com

    I created a small excel spread sheet that I feed in two points along the axis (3 D co-ordinates from my modelling program) and it gives me the axis and pivot required by the TMD. Your welcome to use it but you do so entirely at your own risk. I used it for the Buffalo and Spitfire and it seems to work ok. I'm working with AC3D and yes it does take a bit of getting used to how the co-ordinates are laid out in that and AFS4... I still get mixed up some times. What I'm calling Z in the calculator is the nose to tail axis, X is the Wing tip to wing tip axis and Y is height up and down. That is how things operate in AC3D. You can easily change the labels in column C if it helps. The TMD co-ordinates X Y Z correspond with my AC3D Z X Y. I'm tired and sorry if I've confused everybody but my aim was to be helpful :)


    KR Matt


    ExcelVectorCalculator.zip

    Thank you very much, that looks like a very useful tool😀

    Another great alternative for anyone thinking about creating their first aircraft model for Aerofly FS 4 would be the CMF Shadow. I would recommend the wide body Shadow DD rather than the Star Streak since the DD is considered an ultralite rather than an LSA, as it has a bigger wing and flies a bit slower and so is more ideal for low and slow sightseeing. The really great thing is that pretty much everything you need data wise is available at one web site. This includes specs, flight test, pilot manual, service manual reports, UK CAA Type Approval certificates, and dimensions. The only thing I did not see was an official Shadow D-D specific 3 view line drawing.


    SHADOW + STREAK
    Online Library of Technical documents, Factory Manuals + other Information for the record-breaking CFM Shadow and Streak microlight aircraft series
    cfmshadow.weebly.com

    Manuals + Documents
    Pilot's Notes
    cfmshadow.weebly.com


    Also CFM creator David Cook's web site

    David Cook Aviator